


Fear and Addiction

by TryingToMystrade (TryingToScribble)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Addiction, Drinking, Eating Disorder, Happy Ending, Slight mention of drug abuse, Smoking, Well not really an ending, mentions of child abuse, more a happy turn of events that could lead to an ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 12:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4435826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TryingToScribble/pseuds/TryingToMystrade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A life of fear and addiction isn't an easy one, but you must stay strong in the face of all evils. There will be a day when everything gets better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear and Addiction

It all started with food. It wasn’t a love of food - far from it. It was stress eating, and no eating, and a general lack of a regular diet or consistent meal times as he grew into his bones. The cause; juggling the various needs of Sherlock, (his baby brother, who often needed food more than he did) and then eating as much as he could while there was chance, while also coping with said baby brother as he took the blows from his alcoholic father, and became nanny in their own mother’s stretching absences.

Then there was the cigarettes. The stress and pressure placed on a teenage boy had led him from the comforts of food to the gentle pull of a cig, leaning as far as he could out of his bedroom window for fear that a lingering smell would trigger a beating from his father. Or, God forbid, his little Sherlock caught him and wanted some too. Too often did Sherlock want to be like his big brother. It wasn’t like he was anything important anyway. No feeling, no care, no name.

When he was older and had a place of his own, and had become a bigger player in the hierarchy of a supposedly secret government chain, smoking became another source of stress. Stress of being caught with a weakness by his ever growing number of adversaries. It was no longer safe to lean out of his windows. Though, as much as he had tamed the smoking, the addiction was still present. Just transformed.

Wine and whiskey became his crutches. It was safer to take a sip of the burning liquid in front of the people he worked for, with, and around as long as he kept his wits about him. It was easy to get a hold of alcohol and easier still to ease the shaking of his fingers by holding the glass; something tobacco could never have been for him.

However, as much as he had tried to tame his own addictions and handle the whirlwind that was Sherlock, alcohol for him became drugs to Sherlock. He would never touch the stuff himself, but more for fear of losing his mind than his pay check or physical wellbeing.

That was how he saw his life; paths of fear and addiction. He didn’t mean anything. He was just a lowly pawn in the grander scheme of a harsh and unwanted life.

That was, until Sherlock was arrested for being obnoxious and having a loud mouth. The man to kindly not put Sherlock on record but chose instead to get the big brother involved was one Inspector Lestrade.

Lestrade was the one who made the call. The voice on the end of the phone was soothing and he thought fleetingly that it should have made him feel sick to his stomach, flash him back to his father’s mockingly soothing words, but it didn’t happen. Instead, his breathing evened out into a regular rhythm and his hands had never been so sure, holding onto the phone.

He was at the Yard collecting Sherlock and holding his hand out to thank Lestrade with a professional handshake in the next hour. Never before had he been given such calm and sparkling perspective on his otherwise morbid world than when their hands were touching. It was grounding. Lestrade himself, he would later learn, was grounding.

Lestrade gave him a smile full of teeth as he took his hand back. “See you ‘round, Holmes?”

“I should think so, but…,” he breathed in reply, a moment of clarity clearing his storming mind. “Call me Mycroft. My name is Mycroft.”

The slight twitch of his lips betrayed his first real smile in a long time - a very long time - but, more than that, it also showed his first real thought that maybe the paths of his life could be forked another way, too. Perhaps there was happiness at the end of another path; he just hadn’t picked the right one yet.

**Author's Note:**

> A thank you is in order for my lovely beta Harri who managed to wrangle this story into something readable while I sat in a corner screaming at vampires!


End file.
